


english rose, scottish thistle

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Drinking, F/M, Fluff, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7926145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Radcliffe and Fitz get drunk, Jemma can't understand them, and for some reason that makes her sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	english rose, scottish thistle

**Author's Note:**

> This came about from Iain saying it's fun having another Scotsman on the set since no one understands him, and my friends and I deciding we'd love a scene where Jemma can't understand the two of them. But of course somehow I made it a little angsty. Surprise, surprise.  
> thanks, itsavolcano, for the beta!! <3

Radcliffe stumbles forward, sloshing tequila over the side of Fitz’s glass and howling as if it’s the funniest thing he’s witnessed all year.

“ANDthenIsaidwhynsnkgskslkfa!” Fitz replies, or at least that’s what it sounds like to Jemma. Ten shots between the three of them, and Radcliffe and Fitz are now conversing in a drunken brogue so thick she can’t understand much of anything.

They’re all celebrating the latest milestone in the lab after a long few weeks of nonstop work, but somehow Jemma bypassed her normal happy drunk stage and landed immediately on sad drunk. She looks back and forth between Fitz and Radcliffe, tears burning her eyes, and politely excuses herself for the night.

She collapses into bed, not even bothering to change. She’s so very exhausted. It feels like she’s just succumbed to a blissful nothingness when she’s woken from her near-comatose state by Fitz flicking on the bedside lamp.

He draws out her name, looking at her despondently and holding his bad hand up, beseeching; it’s shaking in the dim light, throwing shadows across his face. She sits up dazedly, reaching for him and wanting to cry with how much she loves him and how overwhelming it still is.

She pulls him into bed with her and starts kneading his arm wordlessly, pressing soothing circles into the spasming muscles.

“Better?” she asks when his arm finally relaxes beneath her touch.

He nods, blinking up at her, trying to focus. “You left,” he says dejectedly, and she knows he’s drunk, knows he can’t possibly mean anything by it, but she still feels a pang of guilt.  Fitz told her once that she needs to learn to forgive herself. Maybe someday.

“Sorry,” she whispers, nuzzling her nose against his head and wincing when the action makes her dizzy. “I was tired. And I felt like you didn’t want me there.”

Fitz snorts, falling down and resting his head in her lap. He drags one of her hands to him and she rolls her eyes, but she can’t help the tenderness tugging at her lips. She knows he just wants her to run her fingers through his hair. He smiles against her when she takes the less-than-subtle hint, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Tha’s dumb. Always wan' you with me.”

She feels tears prickling again and continues massaging his scalp lightly. “I couldn’t understand you,” she finally says. “You and Radcliffe. I couldn’t understand what you two were saying.”

She thinks he’s trying to respond but she can’t hear him properly. “Fitz?”

He snores softly and Jemma smiles. She gently extricates herself from his embrace, carefully removes his shoes and trousers, and curls up next to him, holding on tightly. She’s asleep in minutes.

++

Jemma flinches awake, groaning at the sunlight streaming through the window. Sometimes she thinks the true miracle of her recovery is not the ability to stand tall under the sun, soaking up all the heat and hope it can give her, but those few times when she can actually take it for granted again.

Like now. Her head is pounding and she’d rather sleep for a few more hours. Or days.

The scent of her favorite tea stops her from burying her head under the pillow. She sees a fresh pot sitting on the nightstand along with a glass of water and medicine for her headache. A bouquet of freshly plucked wildflowers rests in her prettiest vase next to the tea. It’s all very confusing.

“Oh, you’re up!” Fitz says happily as he walks back into the bedroom. “I was just preparing things for breakfast. I wasn’t sure what you’d be in the mood for so I got ingredients for pancakes or an omelette. Or both!”

Jemma stares up at him, frowning. Is it possible, she thinks, that she’s still dreaming? Or that this isn’t Fitz at all but a very clever copy? Not once, in all of the times they’ve gotten drunk together, has Fitz ever woken before noon. He’s certainly never managed to leave the bed and go _shopping_.

“Um… I uh… what?” Jemma finally manages. Fitz grins at her and god, she still finds his smile breathtaking, even when her head is fuzzy, even when the world is too bright to be beautiful. He sits at the edge of the bed, delicately pushing her mussed-up hair behind her ear.

“You were upset last night, but I was a bit too out of it for a conversation. I felt bad about that this morning, so I thought I’d make us breakfast and we could talk.”

Jemma impulsively leans forward, running her fingers over his forehead, his cheek, his jaw, tracing every curve, every edge that she memorized long ago. Once, she had been trapped in another universe with just a picture, and now Fitz smiles beneath her hands, patiently letting her fingers map his face because some mornings—every morning—she wakes still afraid she’s said goodnight to a photograph.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says eventually, when she’s once again reassured herself, twining his fingers with her own. “I think with the stress of everything, the tequila just hit me wrong. Lapsed into sad drunk Jemma, you know.”

He kisses her forehead so gently that her heart falters. “Yeah, but sad drunk Jemma usually has a reason for being sad, and I feel like it was my fault. You said something about not understanding me and Radcliffe?”

She sighs. “It’s so stupid, Fitz.”

“It’s obviously not, if it’s making you upset. I thought we were going to tell each other everything now.”

She huffs out a breath impatiently. “Yeah, but…” She doesn’t need to look at him to know he won’t drop it, so she finally admits, “I couldn’t understand what you and Radcliffe were saying when you got really drunk. Your accents were too thick.”

He tilts his head, analyzing her as if she’s a particularly trying maths problem. “Really?” He actually looks a bit smug. “That’s all right, then. I thought at this point there was nothing left about me you couldn’t figure out.” He bumps her shoulder affectionately and she looks down, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, Jemma—” but she cuts him off immediately.

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing to apologize for. You don’t need to tone down your accent for my sake.”

“To be fair, neither of us probably made much sense. I don’t even remember most of our conversation. I doubt you were missing anything.” He looks at her carefully. “Why does this upset you so much?”

“Do you always do this?” she asks, rather desperately. “Are you changing your accent for me right now?”

He pauses, considering. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But don’t people do that sort of thing unconsciously anyway? I’ve been in America for so long I’m not even sure what my real accent is anymore. Are you changing your accent for me?”

She shrugs, at a loss.

“Jemma, what’s this about, really?”

“I just... I want to fit _in_ ,” she blurts.

Fitz blinks at her. “With me and Radcliffe?”

“ _No,_ I mean in Scotland. I want to fit in when we’re in Scotland.”

“But why? It’s not like I fit in when we visit your family in England.”

“That’s _different_. I don’t want to settle down in England.”

Fitz stares at her, eyes wide. “You still want to settle down in _Scotland_? With me?”

“Ugh, Fitz!” Jemma slumps back down against the pillows, folding her arms across her chest almost petulantly. “I told you as much! And of course with you. _Honestly_.”

“Well, yeah, but you just mentioned it that once, when we…” he pauses, scratching at his neck. “It’s just that a lot has changed.”

“I’m never going to change my mind about this,” she says fiercely. “And I don’t know why it feels like such a big deal, but I want to belong with you. And what if we have kids? They’ll make fun of my accent. Children are mean.”

Fitz bites his lip at that, trying to hold in his laughter, but it bubbles out uncontrollably and the sound pulls her from her melancholy until she’s laughing too. Fitz flops down next to her gracelessly, curling his arms around her and pressing kisses all over her face.

"Our kids will not be mean. No child of mine is going to make fun of their perfect, brilliant, beautiful, _English_ mother.”

She smiles up at him, unsure of where these insecurities came from but feeling him free her of their burden all the same.

“I’m gonna teach you all the slang I know, okay? And I’m gonna teach you the Scottish Gaelic _and_ Scots I know, which is quite a bit more than most people. Which doesn’t solve the accent problem, but it doesn’t matter anyway because you’re always going to belong with me and we’re going to have a _home_ designed to our exact specifications and it’s going to be just like you’ve always imagined. We’re going to be so happy, Jemma, I promise.”

“I’m already happy, Fitz,” she breathes.

He kisses her firmly and so sweetly her bones ache. “All of Scotland will fall in love with you in no time. But just remember you loved me first.”

“I would never forget,” she says seriously, hoping he can see everything she’s offering. “I loved you first and last.”

He stares at her for a second before ducking his head down. Sometimes she wonders what they could have been, if they’d figured out their feelings years ago. But now, when staring at him too long is like looking at a sun she desperately craves, when she knows her need will blind her, she realizes her whole soul can barely contain everything she wants for Fitz and from him. What would a sixteen-year-old with two PhDs have known of surviving that kind of love?

“Can we have breakfast later?” she whispers, pulling a blanket over them both and melting as much into him as their bodies allow.

“Yeah, ‘course.”

He’s silent for a moment, until their breathing has synced up and slowed down. “Hey, did I ever tell you about Daisy’s horrible Scottish accent?”

She grins, nodding against his chest.  “But tell me again.”


End file.
